Anthropology exam questions

Who first used the term “anthropology”, in what meaning, what does it mean in literal translation?

Answer:

The term "Anthropology" is of Greek origin and literally translated means "the science of man" (from anthropos - man and logos - word, doctrine, science). Thus, anthropology is a field of scientific knowledge whose subject of study is man. In this understanding, the term carries its broadest content.

The first use of the term dates back to antiquity. Aristotle (384-322 BC) was the first to use it to designate a field of knowledge that studies primarily the spiritual side of human nature. With this meaning the term existed for over a millennium. It has been preserved to this day, for example, in religious knowledge (theology), in philosophy, in many humanities (for example, in art history), and partly in psychology. In 1501, M. Hundt’s book “Anthropology on the dignity, nature and properties of man and on the elements, parts and members of the human body” was published. In this anatomical work, the term “anthropology” was first used in connection with the description of the exclusively physical (biological) structure of man. The book by G. Capella, published in 1533, was entitled “Anthropology, or Discourse on Human Nature.” In this work, the term “anthropology” is for the first time accompanied by data on individual variations in the structure of the human body, its individual variability. Apparently, it was from this moment that a double understanding of anthropology was established in science - as the science of the human soul, on the one hand, and the science of the human body, its structure and diversity.

The term began to be used with different meanings. Thus, the French enlighteners of the 18th century. still gave it an extremely broad meaning and understood anthropology as the entire body of knowledge about man. Anthropology seemed to be a universal science about man, systematizing knowledge about his natural history, material and spiritual culture, psychology, language and physical organization.

Anthropology, object, subject of study of modern science

Answer:

Anthropological research is based on the analysis of two interrelated levels of organization that differ in their content - individual and supra-individual (group and population). Human populations are the objects on which anthropology has focused its main attention. But any anthropological work begins with the study of the individual. The subject of anthropology is the study of variations in human physical type in space and time. This diversity consists of the manifestations of a large number of very different traits - anthropological characteristics. We look at what he is wearing, what language he speaks, how he expresses his thoughts, we try to understand his mood, we evaluate the level of his intelligence and his social background.

Challenges of modern anthropology

Answer:

The main task of anthropology is to study the process of transition of the dependence of the development of human animal ancestors from biological factors to social ones.

The task of biological anthropology is to identify and scientifically describe the variability (polymorphism) of a number of human biological characteristics and systems of these (anthropological) characteristics, as well as to identify the reasons that determine this diversity.

Object of study of biological anthropology

Answer:

The main object of anthropological research and the key biological category are human populations. We can cite a dozen formulations of this term put forward by different scientists, but let’s focus on one: “a group of organisms belonging to the same species and occupying a certain place in space at a certain point in time is called a population.” "From all the formulations, two important consequences can be deduced: a biological consequence: individuals included in a population, in theory, should be characterized by somewhat greater similarity among themselves, compared with individuals belonging to other similar groups. The degree of this similarity is determined by the unity of origin and occupation territory, the relative isolation of the population and the time of this isolation. The human population seems to be a category not only biological, but also historical, and whenever we talk about biological characteristics - about intra- and interpopulation variability - we should not lose sight of the wide range of social characteristics unique to humans. factors whose action largely determines this variability. As a result of archaeological excavations, anthropologists have the opportunity to study truly unique fossil material - skeletal series. Let us consider the main criteria of what we will consider an ancient population and what is not: the archaeological criterion. It was proposed by the outstanding Russian anthropologist V.P. Alekseev: “paleopopulation is the number of objects buried in one burial ground, which, judging by the archaeological inventory accompanying it, does not represent a random accumulation of burials or a collection of ritual burials.”

All objects of anthropological research are relative, mobile, and always characterized by a unique and often very complex internal structure. These factors should be recognized, taken into account and, of course, studied in the course of direct work - the study of the variability of anthropological characteristics.

The subject of biological anthropology, what tasks does this science set for itself?

Answer:

Anthropology (or anthropological science) in a broad sense is a field of knowledge whose subject of study is man. The present time is characterized by an ambiguous understanding of the content of anthropology: 1) as a general science about man, combining the knowledge of various natural sciences and humanities; 2) as a science that studies human biological diversity. Biological anthropology itself deals with the study of historical and geographical aspects of the variability of human biological properties (anthropological characteristics).

The subject of study of biological (or physical) anthropology is the diversity of human biological characteristics in time and space. The task of biological anthropology is to identify and scientifically describe the variability (polymorphism) of a number of human biological characteristics and systems of these (anthropological) characteristics, as well as to identify the reasons that determine this diversity.

General sections distinguished within the framework of biological anthropology (characterize them)

Answer:

Anthropology, in the understanding accepted in Soviet science, contains the following main sections: human morphology, the study of anthropogenesis and racial studies. From the middle of the 20th century. A complex of disciplines united under the name “human biology” is rapidly developing.

Human morphology is divided into somatology and merology. Somatology studies the patterns of individual variability of the human body as a whole, sexual dimorphism in the structure of the body, age-related changes in size and proportions from the embryonic period to old age, the influence of various biological and social conditions on the structure of the body and human constitution. This section is most closely related to medicine and is essential for establishing standards for physical development and growth rates, for gerontology, etc. This section of Anthropology examines such issues as the place of man in the system of the animal world, his relationship as a zoological species to other primates, the restoration of the path along which the development of higher primates took place, the study of the role of labor in the origin of man, the identification of stages in the process of human evolution, study of the conditions and reasons for the formation of a modern person.

Anthropogenesis is the process of historical and evolutionary formation of a person’s physical type, the initial development of his work activity and speech. Anthropogenesis studies the origin of man, his formation as a species in the process of historical and evolutionary development. The doctrine of anthropogenesis is a branch of anthropology, the central problem of evolutionary anthropology, in the study of which data from a number of natural and social sciences about man and the Earth are used.

Racial studies - the section of Anthropology that studies human races, is sometimes not quite accurately called “ethnic” Anthropology; the latter refers, strictly speaking, only to the study of the racial composition of individual ethnic groups, i.e. tribes, peoples, nations, and the origin of these communities. Racial studies, in addition to the above-mentioned problems, also studies the classification of races, the history of their formation and such factors of their occurrence as selective processes, isolation, mixing and migration, the influence of climatic conditions and the general geographical environment on racial characteristics. In that part of racial research that is aimed at studying ethnogenesis, Anthropology conducts research together with linguistics, history, and archeology.

Characterize the period of history in which physical anthropology emerged as an independent discipline

Answer:

Physical anthropology took shape as an independent scientific discipline in the second half of the 19th century. In the 60s. In the countries of Western Europe, the first anthropological societies were established and the first special anthropological works began to be published. In Paris, on the initiative of P. Broca, the Anthropological Scientific Society was first founded in 1859, under which a museum and an Anthropological School were organized. In 1863, the Anthropological Society was founded in London. Later, similar organizations appeared in Germany, Italy and other countries.

Almost simultaneously, the first scientific anthropological societies were established in Western Europe and Russia and the first special anthropological works began to be published. Among the founders of scientific anthropology is a constellation of outstanding scientists of their time: P. Broca, P. Topinar, R. Martin, I. Deniker, K.M. Baer, ​​A.P. Bogdanov, D.N. Anuchin and others.

General features of an integrated approach in anthropological research

Answer:

The emergence of this approach in Russian anthropology is associated with the activities of some scientists. Various specialists were involved in the collection, for example, and systematization of craniological materials, including the authors of valuable anthropological works - D. Anuchin, N. Zgraf, A. Tikhomirov, D. Samokvasov, V. Radakov, S. Moravitsky and others.

D. Anuchin made a great contribution to the development of Russian anthropology. While in 1876-1878. On a business trip abroad, he not only got acquainted with the leading museums of Germany, England, France, Austria and other countries, participated in archaeological excavations and collected collections, but also prepared the Russian anthropological department at the 1878 World Exhibition in Paris.

The first major work by D. Anuchin (1874) was devoted to anthropomorphic monkeys and represented a very valuable summary of the comparative anatomy of higher apes. In his monograph on the anthropology and ethnography of the Ainu (1876), along with anthropological material, D. Anuchin made extensive use of ethnographic, historical, and even linguistic data.

This integrated approach generally characterizes the direction that was started by D. Anuchin in Russia. A characteristic feature of all the activities of D. Anuchin was the desire to popularize science, while maintaining all the accuracy and rigor of scientific research. One of the results of his activities was the establishment in 1882 of the Anthropological Museum in Moscow, the basis for which was the collections collected for the Anthropological Exhibition of 1879. The series “Proceedings of the Anthropological Department,” published under the editorship of D. Anuchin, contains a number of works devoted to anthropological study individual peoples.

Let us note the main thing: in the first decades of the 20th century. Russian anthropology was a completely independent university discipline. Its basis was an almost continuous scientific tradition of an integrated approach to the study of man (the famous “Anuchinsky triad” of sciences inextricably linked: anthropology – archeology – ethnography).

An integrated approach unites a group of studies on 2 grounds:

a) the same principles and methods for studying individuality;

b) conducting experiments on identical or similar samples.

The foregoing indicates that when implementing an integrated approach to the study of individuality, one of the ways to verify the versatility of a phenomenon is to consider the vectors obtained in different experiments that “contact” each other and provide, as mentioned at the beginning, the viewing of one selected determinant. The determinant in this case acquires different facets and different dependencies.

Biological variability (definition, characteristics, examples)

Answer:

Biological variability is a fundamental concept of any phenomenological biological discipline. Depending on the context, this is understood as: 1) a measure of relative similarity between objects of study (individuals, groups of individuals, populations, etc.) for individual biological characteristics or complexes of such characteristics; 2) as a synonym for the concept of biological diversity, variability or polymorphism in the broad sense of the word. The concept of variability is used as a general criterion for constructing any objective system of relations of biological objects.

Variability (biological), diversity of characters and properties in individuals and groups of individuals of any degree of relationship. Variability is inherent in all living organisms, therefore in nature there are no individuals that are identical in all characteristics and properties. The term “Variability” is also used to denote the ability of living organisms to respond with morphophysiological changes to external influences and to characterize the transformations of the forms of living organisms in the process of their evolution.

Variability can be classified according to the causes, nature and nature of the changes, as well as the objectives and methods of the study.

Types of variability

Answer:

Variation is the ability of organisms to acquire new characteristics. The variability of organisms is associated both with changes in the genotype and with the influence of external environmental factors.

Types of variability: modification, mutation, combination.

Modifying variability is changes in the characteristics of an organism (its phenotype) caused by changes in environmental conditions and not associated with changes in the genotype. Modification variability most clearly manifests itself as the body’s reaction to changes in environmental factors: for example, geographic living conditions, intensity of solar radiation, nature of nutrition, etc. Modification variability has adaptive (adaptive) significance. In cases where changes occur as a result of the action of a large number of factors, they are called random. Such variability is not inherited and serves as a reaction to changes in the intensity of certain living conditions.

Mutational variability is caused by mutations (from the Latin mutatio - change, change) - a stable change in the genetic material and, as a consequence, an inherited trait. There are no transitional forms of variability compared to the initial state.

Mutation is a sudden, persistent change in the genotype that leads to a change in certain hereditary characteristics of the organism.

Combinative variability arises in the genotypes of descendants due to random recombination of alleles. The genes themselves do not change, but the genotypes of parents and children are different. Combinative variability arises as a result of several processes: a) independent divergence of chromosomes during meiosis; b) gene recombination during crossing over; c) a chance meeting of gametes during fertilization.

Combinative variability - it is based on the sexual reproduction of organisms.

All these sources act independently and simultaneously, resulting in a wide variety of genotypes.

Combinative variation is the main source of observed genetic diversity. It is known that the human genome contains approximately 30-40 thousand genes. About a third of all genes have more than one allele, i.e. are polymorphic. However, even in the presence of only a small number of loci containing several alleles, only through recombination (due to mixing of gene complexes) does a colossal number of unique genotypes arise.

What is a population and how is it divided?

Answer:

Population is a collection of individuals of one species, to a certain extent isolated from other similar populations, characterized by a common origin, habitat (area) and forming an integral genetic system (common gene pool). Most populations have a complex hierarchical structure, subdividing into a number of natural smaller units (local populations and demes) and at the same time being part of larger population systems. The main criteria of a population are: unity of habitat (area); unity of origin; relative isolation of the group from other groups; absence of significant intrapopulation barriers; the ability to maintain numbers sufficient for self-reproduction of the group. There are several dozen other definitions, according to the shortest of which a population is a group of organisms belonging to the same species and occupying a certain place in space at a given moment in time.

Depending on the size and the associated degree of panmixia (free crossing of different-sex individuals in a population) and inbreeding (inbreeding), several levels of populations are distinguished:

small local populations (they are also called demes, Mendelian or, simply, small populations);

more numerous population associations (sometimes called tribes), occupying a wider area and including several local populations that are less isolated from each other;

finally, large associations consisting of many populations of different sizes, occupying vast regions, for which the panmixia rule, naturally, is not fully satisfied.

Anthropological characteristics and principles of their grouping

Answer:

An anthropological trait is a specific expression of any biological property of the human body, which can take on different expressions in different individuals, and can also be accurately measured or described. Essentially, this is any feature that has a specific state (variant) that reveals similarities or differences between individuals.

Different signs have different forms of variation - that is, they differ in their metric properties or in nature:

there are characteristics with a continuous nature of variation (measurement, metric or quantitative) - these are all possible characteristics that can be measured in mm, kg and other units. On a certain segment of a certain numerical axis, the magnitude of such features can take on absolutely any value.

a special category of characteristics includes those that are impossible or impractical to accurately measure, but can be described using an increasing sequential series of points (1<2<3 и т.п., то есть по принципу "маленький - средний - большой"). Подобные описательные или качественные свойства называют порядковыми признаками;

finally, in contrast to all of them, there are discretely varying (or nominal) characteristics. They are impossible or unnecessary to measure and have no variation in length, width, depth, etc.

Signs can be grouped on different grounds:

by the nature of the material being studied - anthropologists examine modern man or his fossil remains (in the latter case, the features of paleoanthropological material are examined - bone, mummified and cremated remains);

in relation to a characteristic to a particular body system - it is possible to describe and measure characteristics of the head and face, somatological parameters, cranial and osteological characteristics, variations in the shape and size of individual organs and tissues (for example, the dental system or signs of dermatoglyphics), as well as complex systems (such as the human brain), functional and physiological indicators, immunogenetic systems of blood and tissues and many others;

by the nature of inheritance of a given trait or property - there are traits the manifestation of which depends on the expression of one or several genes. It is believed that these include most traits with a discrete nature of variation. On the contrary, the expression of most metric parameters is the result of a complex interaction of a large number of genes and gene complexes, highly determined by a range of non-genetic factors in the process of growth and development of the organism.

Finally, signs can be divided according to the principle of their normality or the obvious pathological nature of their occurrence.

Genesis of views on the question of human origins

Answer:

The origin of man is studied by various sciences, including anthropology, philosophy, history, theology, paleontology and others. In this regard, today there are quite a large number of theories about the appearance of people: a social individual, a product of the activity of extraterrestrial civilizations, a biological being, etc. To this day, none of the existing theories has been strictly proven. It is quite difficult to characterize all existing theories, but it is quite possible to consider the most convincing ones.

The most popular theories of human origin are creationism (divine creation) and Darwinism (evolutionary origin).

There are several hypotheses in creationism. According to one of them, people originated from the gods. According to another, man was created by one god. Most scientists reject such religious and worldview interpretations. About half of the scientific world and other researchers on this issue share the ideas of Darwinism, which is based on the fact that the origin of man is associated with natural selection. Creationism is characterized by more philosophical views than scientific ones. Versions of this theory range from purely theological to quite confidently claiming to be scientific. Creationists reject evolution and make determined attempts to scientifically prove the facts described in the Bible. The creation hypothesis is unlikely to be proven or disproved, and therefore will always exist along with scientific theories.

According to Darwin's theory, the origin of man became possible thanks to the evolution of monkeys, who learned to hold a stick in their hands and stood on two legs. This theory is based on a serious base of facts and anthropological data and represents a coherent scientific system. The creator of evolutionary theory summarized the results of the achievements of biology, breeding practice and his own observations. He was able to substantiate a hypothesis in which he explained the origin of man by the evolution of the ape. According to his theory, the diversity of animals and plants that inhabit the Earth is the result of frequent mutations that add up over centuries and millennia. Then natural selection begins. Individuals and species that are unadapted to life are pushed to the periphery, allowing others that are more adapted to new conditions to develop faster. Based on Darwin's theory, a concept such as anthropogenesis was derived, which today is understood as the process of separation of man from the animal world. It is believed that the most distant ancestors of humans were apes, which in their evolution went through several stages before the formation of the final result. The line of evolution lined up as follows: Australopithecus (Homo habilis) - Pithecanthropus (Homo erectus) - Paleoanthropus (Neanderthal man) - Cro-Magnon (Homo sapiens). It should be said that a hundred years ago this theory completely satisfied the scientific world. But currently, more and more new facts are being discovered that lead to criticism of Darwinism.

Today, a theory that explains the origin of man on Earth by external intervention is also very popular. According to it, people appeared on Earth thanks to the activities of other civilizations. According to one hypothesis, modern people are descendants of aliens who landed on Earth in prehistoric times. More complex hypotheses suggest that humans arose through the crossing of representatives of other planets with the ancestors of modern earthlings; thanks to genetic engineering, spatial anomalies, etc. However, many of these theories resemble ideas of divine intervention.

Answer:

Anthropogenesis is the process of biological evolution of the predecessors of modern humans and the origin of Homo sapiens sapiens. In addition, anthropogenesis is usually called the very field of physical anthropology, which studies the process of human biological evolution.

Anthropogenesis - (Greek anthropos - man and genesis - origin) - the process of the emergence and development of man as a social being. Darwin, Huxley and Haeckel proved the origin of man from the higher apes of the Tertiary period. The driving force of A., as Engels showed, was the social and labor activity of people, which created specific social connections, culture, and formed the bodily organization of man. All this refutes religious speculation about the divine creation of man. The process of its emergence and development was prepared by the transition of australopithecines (the closest ancestors of humans - fossil apes that lived in Africa several million years ago) to a terrestrial way of existence, omnivorous nutrition and the use of natural objects as tools (for joint hunting, utilization of prey, defense) , and then to their correction and increasingly frequent cases of their production. This led to the emergence of the systematic production of rough stone, bone and wooden tools, and consequently, the beginnings of social production, primitive herds of early emerging people (Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus), who together hunted animals and knew how to use fire. Their descendants - paleoanthropes, or Neanderthals, made tools that were more complex in shape and purpose, created the first artificial structures, and knew how to make fire. The emerging social production determined the emergence of consciousness and speech and shaped the human body. The process of formation of society and man lasted hundreds of thousands of years (Africa, Southeast, South, Western Asia, Europe) and ended with the transformation of the primitive herd into a primitive society, and the Neanderthal into a modern type of man approximately 35-40 thousand years ago.

As an independent scientific discipline, physical anthropology took shape in the second half of the 19th century. In the 60s, in the countries of Western Europe, the first anthropological societies were established and the first special anthropological works began to be published.

In Paris, on the initiative of P. Broca, in 1859, the Anthropological Scientific Society was first founded, under which a museum and an Anthropological School were organized. In 1863, the Anthropological Society was founded in London. Later, similar organizations appeared in Germany, Italy and other countries.

But the process of accumulating anthropological knowledge began much earlier and included:

· study of the characteristics of the physical type of peoples (modern ethnic anthropology and racial studies);

· development of general theoretical ideas about the origin of man (now the theory of anthropogenesis).

Issues related to the study of variations in the structure of individual human systems and organs, age-related variability and physical development (modern human morphology) have not been outside the range of interests of anatomists and physicians for a long time.

The “official” date of birth of anthropology in Russia is considered to be 1864, when, on the initiative of the “first Russian anthropologist” A.P. Bogdanov, the Anthropological Department of the Society of Natural History Lovers was organized (later renamed the Society of Natural History Lovers, Anthropology and Ethnography - OLEAE).

However, the desire to “study and collect materials,” as well as systematize them, arose among Russian scientists long before the work of Prof. A.P. Bogdanov, and long before special methods of anthropological research were developed. In this regard, let us remember the quote above, about “bungly” noses and “broad” shoulders.

This is an excerpt from a questionnaire compiled V.N. Tatishchev in 1737. His famous “Proposal for the Composition of Russian History and Geography” contains the first (and not only in Russia) systematic program for describing the Earth, containing about 200 questions on various sections of geography, history and, of course, ethnography. It states there that “when describing each people, the state of their bodies must be described,” and it says how to do this.

An essential stage on this path was the beginning of the study of Siberia, the Far East and the Northern Territories of Russia. Following V.N. Tatishchev, participant of the Great Northern Expedition of 1733-1743. historian G.F. Miller developed the first detailed questionnaire (in fact, an anthropological form), containing dozens of questions: height, build, hair shape and color, eye color, size and shape of the face, nose, mouth, chin, ears, size, fit and color of teeth, and so on. Most of these features are included in modern anthropological forms, although in a unified form.

Anthropological characteristics of various peoples of the Russian Empire continue to emerge throughout the 18th-19th centuries. Among them are descriptions of the anthropological type of the Kamchadals, Koryaks and Kurils, scattered in the ethnographic monograph S.P. Krasheninnikova(“Description of the land of Kamchatka”, 1755). The author notes, for example, that the Kamchadals are “short in stature, dark in body, not shaggy, black-haired, have little beards, Kalmyk-like faces, with blackened noses...”, the Kurilians “in physical form” are sharply different from them: “This people is of average height, with hair black, round-faced and dark-skinned, but much more handsome than other peoples. Their beards are large, thick, their bodies are shaggy...”

Enormous material was collected by participants of the academic expedition of 1768-1774. under the direction of P.P. Pallas.

To a large extent, a summary of accumulated ethnographic and anthropological materials was published in 1776-1777. composition Georgi“Description of all the peoples living in the Russian state.” This information is not organized, not systematized, and sometimes just funny, but it is of undoubted interest for modern science.

In the last decades of the 18th century. Russian expeditions were carried out to the Aleutian Islands and Alaska, Russian settlements were founded on the Pacific coast of North America.

Since the first circumnavigation of the world I.F. Krusenstern And Yu.F. Lisyansky(1803-1806), Russian sailors made more than 30 trips around the world, which were marked not only by the most important geographical discoveries, but also provided the first information about the population of the Pacific islands. In the works O.E. Kotzebue, V.M. Golovnina, F.P. Litke and other Russian navigators contained the most valuable ethnographic materials and, along with them, the first descriptions in science of the physical type of many peoples.

While the accumulation of data on the physical type of the peoples of Russia and foreign countries proceeded in parallel with ethnographic research, another area of ​​anthropology, treating questions of the origin of man and his place in the system of the animal world, developed in connection with “natural history.”

Works A.P. Protasova, S.G. Zabelina, A.M. Shumlyansky, D.I. Ivanova and other Russian anatomists back in the 18th century. laid a solid foundation for the development of domestic anatomy. Representative of anatomy of the early 19th century. was an outstanding anatomist and physiologist P.A. Zagorsky- author of a number of teratological studies.

The largest works of world natural history literature were translated into Russian, for example the famous “Natural History” by J. Buffon, published in Russia in the period from 1749 to 1804. J. Buffon, without denying the possibility of transformation of one species into another in animals, categorically rejected the idea of ​​a connection between man and the animal kingdom. He emphasizes the huge gap between man, with his complex mental world, and other creatures devoid of reason. Despite the authority of this opinion, the Russian scientist A. Kaverznev in his essay “On the Rebirth of Animals” (1775) he tries to prove the idea of ​​kinship between humans and primates. For the first time, such an idea was fully formalized in the taxonomic works of C. Linnaeus (1707-1778) and the works of J.B. Lamarck (1774-1829).

The Russian writer and philosopher adhered to a similar idea A.N. Radishchev, who wrote in 1792-1796. treatise “On Man, His Mortality and Immortality.” “Most of all, the similarity between humans and animals is remarkable... Animals also have all the organs with which humans are gifted, meaning in their intended gradualness.” Noting the similarity with animals and pointing out that “in man, perhaps, there is not a single inclination, not a single virtue, which would not be found in animals,” A.N. Radishchev also emphasizes the differences of man. This is, first of all, upright walking - “the most distinguishing quality of a person.” “His wide foot, big toe and the position of the others with the muscles moving the foot are clear proof that a person should not crawl on the ground, but look beyond its limits.” The most important feature of a person is his unique speech, “...man owes all his inventions and his improvement to its benefit...”.

At the beginning of the 19th century. Anthropology has not yet emerged as an independent branch of knowledge. In Russia, the first steps in this direction are associated with the activities of academician K.M. Bera(1792-1876). One of the greatest naturalists of the 19th century, the founder of modern embryology, an outstanding geographer and traveler, K.M. Baer is also known as one of the largest anthropologists of his time, as an organizer of anthropological and ethnographic research in Russia. Of particular interest is his work “On the Origin and Distribution of Human Tribes” (1822), which develops the view of the origin of humanity from a common root, that the differences between human races developed after their settlement from a common center, under the influence of various natural conditions in their habitat areas. This work, for the first time, is not just a collection of anthropological information, and does not boil down to a simple postulation of some idea, but is an attempt at a demonstrative logical conclusion of a certain hypothesis.

In 1824 K.M. Baer published his lectures on anthropology. Of the three parts conceived by the author, only the first was published—anthropography, which sets out the fundamentals of human anatomy and physiology. The other two parts were to be devoted to the comparison of man with animals, his position in the system of the animal world, as well as a description of the differences within humanity, the question of divisions within the species, and the influence of climatic factors and living conditions on the structure of man. Unfortunately, the work never saw the light of day in its completed form. Partially his ideas K.M. Baer outlined it in a number of popular articles published in the 50-60s in St. Petersburg.

Since 1842 K.M. Baer heads the Anatomical Cabinet of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, where a small craniological collection, the famous Peter's collection of freaks and anatomical preparations acquired by Peter I from the Dutch anatomist Ruysch were kept. Thanks to Baer, ​​this office becomes the basis of a future major museum. Baer devoted a lot of effort to replenishing and systematizing, first of all, his craniological collections. In the process of studying them, Baer published a number of articles on craniology. The first of them dates back to 1844 and is devoted to the description of the Karagas skull, which he compares with the Samoyed and Buryat skulls. This is not only the first craniological work in Russia, but, undoubtedly, one of the first craniological studies, in which many methodological and general questions of anthropology are posed.

An article by K.M. dates back to 1859. Baer "On the Papuans and Alfurs", which sets out in detail his views on the origin of the human races. He also owns special works - on deformed skulls, on the craniological type of the Slavs and a number of others.

K.M. Baer was the founder of the study of the anthropological type of the Kurgan Slavic population of Russia and the direct predecessor of the outstanding works of A.P. Bogdanov in this area.

Baer’s merits should be especially noted in developing the program and methodology for anthropological, primarily craniological, research. Already in the works of the 40s and 50s, he pointed out the need to develop unified principles for measuring the human body (primarily the skull).

K.M. Baer initiated the Congress of Anthropologists, which took place in Göttingen in 1861. The methods and program of craniological research he proposed at the congress formed the basis for further work by craniologists both in Russia and abroad.

Of the theoretical problems of anthropology, the greatest attention was paid to K.M. Baer was interested in questions of the origin of human races and factors in the emergence of racial characteristics. The main point that he developed in his works is that differences, both in the physical type and in the culture of peoples, are due to the peculiarities of the geographical environment, the influence of climate and terrain (the tradition of J.B. Lamarck). He consistently develops the hypothesis of the single origin of humanity and its settlement from a single center (the theory of monocentrism). These views stemmed from the recognition of the variability of forms in the animal world and the common origin of related species. Throughout his career, K.M. Baer adhered to the theory of transformism.

By the middle of the 19th century, widespread interest in the achievements of biology caused the spread in Europe, and even in Russia, of various racist “theories” aimed at “scientifically” justifying the inequality of human racial types. This was a period of history when the data of anthropology, an independent science still in its infancy, began to be actively used for unseemly political purposes, which had a wide public resonance.

So, N.G. Chernyshevsky, in the article of 1855 he clearly formulates the position on the independence of the level of culture of peoples from their racial affiliation. He also owns the anthropological work “On Races” and the related article “On the Classification of People by Language,” which discuss the issues of classification of races, prove the discrepancy between linguistic and racial classifications, and the discrepancy between national and racial divisions. N.G. Chernyshevsky also touches on the issue of the origin of racial characteristics, linking them with different conditions of the natural environment, and argues for the position that all races descended from the same ancestors and that the characteristics “by which they differ from one another have a historical origin.”

ON THE. Dobrolyubov, spoke in 1858 with criticism of the fashionable hobby of the time - Gall's phrenology. In the same year, he published an article containing a devastating criticism of the two-volume work of the Slavophile N. Zherebtsov, who developed anthroposociological views. Dobrolyubov develops the idea that “national differences in general depend most of all on the historical circumstances of the development of the people”, that the differences between peoples “should be recognized as a consequence of civilization, and not as its root cause.”

These and similar works played an important role in popularizing the latest achievements of human science. However, in the fight against racist theories, not only philosophical arguments were needed, but also arguments obtained as a result of special anthropological and ethnographic research, which were carried out by a number of Russian scientists.

Among them, the works of special and great importance are N.N. Miklouho-Maclay(1846-1888). Being a zoologist by profession, he glorified Russian science not so much with his work in this area as with his remarkable research on the ethnography and anthropology of the peoples of New Guinea and other areas of the South Pacific. N.N. developed a special interest in New Guinea. Miklouho-Maclay, largely influenced by the work of K.M. Bera about the Papuans and Alfurs.

But even more than special anthropological problems, he was fascinated by the humanistic ideals of the struggle for the equality of human races and the rights of oppressed colonial peoples. N.N. Miklouho-Maclay was guided by the idea that the differences between races and peoples are not original, but are caused by differences in the conditions of their existence and the characteristics of the external environment. He set himself the goal of using objective facts, using materials from the anthropology of “dark-skinned peoples,” to prove the equivalence of human races and the commonality of their origin.

During the famous expeditions of 1871-1883. to New Guinea, the islands of Micronesia and Melanesia, Miklouho-Maclay set himself a special task - to find out the ancient connections of the population of Indonesia and Oceania and to establish the boundaries of the spread of the Melanesian racial type. The anthropological materials he collected were a valuable contribution to world science.

He was the first to illuminate many issues in the anthropology of Oceania and Southeast Asia, and laid the foundation for further study of these areas. He refuted the prevailing ideas in science of that time about fundamental differences between individual races, in particular, the assertion that the Papuans are qualitatively different from all other human races. Thus, having studied the arrangement of hair on the heads of the Papuans, he showed that the widely held opinion at that time about the special tuft-like distribution of their hair was completely untrue. In the anthropological literature of the last century, the dominant view was that one of the most important racial characteristics is the shape of the skull, and that the division into dolicho- and brachycephalic people should be the basis of anthropological classification. N.N. Miklouho-Maclay was one of the first to argue against this idea. In doing so, he proceeded from the presence of large variations in head shape within the same race. His works provide convincing evidence that many of the physical characteristics of individual peoples, considered racial, are in fact explained by external factors. Thus, the belief has been repeatedly expressed that the dark-skinned races have poorly developed calf muscles, that their first toe is far removed from the second, and that both of these features bring them closer to primates. N.N. Miklouho-Maclay showed that weak calf muscles are observed only among those Papuans who spend a lot of time in a sitting position in a boat, and that it is well developed among Papuans who lead an active lifestyle in the mountains, and that greater mobility of the first finger in certain groups was acquired in as a result of special work techniques and, therefore, appears more on the right leg than on the left leg.

The 60s and 70s of the 19th century are rightly called the “Bogdanov period” in the development of Russian anthropology. Professor at Moscow University, A.P. Bogdanov(1834-1896), was not only the initiator and organizer of the Society of Natural History Lovers at Moscow University, which he led for 30 years, from its founding in 1863. It was the school of A.P. Bogdanova became that “scientific center”, with the work of which a continuous line of further development of all Russian anthropological science is connected (purposeful and systematized collection of anthropological, archaeological and ethnographic materials, the introduction of the latest foreign methods of anthropological work and their unification, thanks to which significant and truly scientific achievements in the development of problems of racial and ethnic anthropology).

Society A.P. Bogdanov considered his most important task to be promoting the development of natural science and the dissemination of natural history knowledge in wide circles of Russian society. The program of work of the Anthropological Department within OLEAE, founded in 1864, included anthropological, ethnographic and archaeological research, which reflected the views of that time on anthropology as a comprehensive science about the physical type of man and his culture.

In 1867, it took place in Moscow, organized on the initiative of A.P. Bogdanov, an ethnographic exhibition at which anthropological materials were presented: a collection of skulls and archaeological objects from the burial mounds of the Moscow province, a collection of dummies of fossil hominids, anthropometric instruments and anthropological photographs.

In the 70s, OLEAE began work on organizing the first Anthropological Exhibition in Russia, scheduled for 1879. The Exhibition Committee, headed by A.P. Bogdanov, developed a plan for special scientific expeditions, proposed unified instructions for collecting materials and the very methodology of field research. Expeditions were organized to the north of Russia, to the central, western and southern regions, to the North Caucasus, Georgia and Central Asia. The main attention during this period was paid to archaeological excavations and the collection of craniological collections. Basically, at this time the richest craniological collection was collected, which to this day serves as material for studying the origin of the Eastern Slavs. On behalf of OLEAE, A.P. Fedchenko undertook in 1868-1871. anthropological expedition to Turkestan, A.I. Kelsiev, conducted an anthropological study of Lapps. Various specialists were involved in the collection and systematization of craniological materials, including the authors of valuable anthropological works - D.N. Anuchin, N.Yu. Zograf, A.A. Tikhomirov, D.Ya. Samokvasov, V.N. Radakov, S.I. Morawicki and others.

Of great importance in the development of Russian anthropology was the stay D.N. Anuchina in 1876-1878 on a business trip abroad. During this trip, he not only got acquainted with the leading museums of Germany, England, France, Austria and other countries, participated in archaeological excavations and collected collections, but also prepared the Russian anthropological department at the 1878 World Exhibition in Paris. The exposition, and with it the achievements of Russian anthropology themselves, received the highest praise from European scientists - OLEAE was awarded a gold medal.

But the true triumph of young Russian anthropology was the opening of the Anthropological Exhibition on April 3, 1879 in Moscow. The years of preparation for the exhibition are the period of the most intensive research activity of A.P. himself. Bogdanov. In 1867, his largest work, “Materials on the anthropology of the Kurgan period in the Moscow province,” appeared, followed by a number of his other studies. At this time, he formulated his theoretical views in the field of anthropology and developed methodological issues. The greatest attention of A.P. Bogdanov, as a researcher, was attracted to the study of the ethnogenesis of the Russian people according to craniological data. In the literature of the 60s and 70s. The question of the ethnicity of the Kurgan population of central Russia and, in connection with this, the characteristics of the original type of skull of the Slavic tribes were widely discussed. In the works of A.P. Bogdanov gave different solutions to these questions, but no matter how he solved the problem of the original anthropological type of the Slavs, about the dolicho- and brachycephalic types, in all cases he remained in a strictly scientific position.

“We do not need to use unscientific means from the conclusions of science, such as foreign brochures on the origin of the population of Central Russia. It is not in the Russian character, not in the spirit of true Russian science, to break facts and falsely illuminate them, and there is no need for them. It is not brachycephaly or dolichocephaly that gives the people the right to respect; it is not the Kurgan ancestors, whatever their origin, that can humiliate or elevate the Russian people and the course of their history.”

Anthropology A.P. Bogdanov understood it broadly and always emphasized its philosophical significance, its role in the development of the most general questions of natural science. He acted as a supporter of Darwinian doctrine. He educated his students in the spirit of evolutionism, and many outstanding biologists came out of his school.

In the 70s Anthropology not only in Russia, but also in Europe remained outside the circle of university disciplines. Although, back in 1864, A.P. Bogdanov came up with a project to teach a public course in anthropology, but then this idea was not implemented.

It was only in 1880 that the first course in physical anthropology in Russia was launched at Moscow University. All the credit for this belongs to the wonderful Russian scientist D.N. Anuchin.

D.N. Anuchin was not only an anthropologist. The first professor of geography in Russia, the creator of the geographical museum and the Institute of Geography of Moscow University, the founder and long-term editor of the geographical magazine “Earth Studies”, the author of many scientific and popular scientific geographical works - D.N. Anuchin is rightfully considered the founder of Russian academic geography. Ethnography and archeology occupied no less place in his activities. And here, he acts not only as a profound researcher and author of a number of major works, but also as a tireless organizer of Russian science, to whom ethnography and archeology largely owe their entry into the circle of academic disciplines.

The first major work of D.N. Anuchin wrote an article in 1874 devoted to anthropomorphic monkeys and representing a very valuable summary of the comparative anatomy of higher apes. His monograph on the anthropology and ethnography of the Ainu dates back to 1876. In this work, along with anthropological material, D.N. Anuchin makes extensive use of ethnographic, historical, and even linguistic data.

The next major scientific work was the study of cranial anomalies. This question was also the subject of his dissertation for a master’s degree in zoology, defended at Moscow University in 1880 and published under the title “On some anomalies of the human skull and mainly on their distribution by race.”

In 1889 D.N. Anuchin published his famous work “On the Geographical Distribution of the Growth of the Male Population of Russia,” in which, based on data from universal military conscription for 1874-1883, on the distribution of height across provinces and districts, he established centers of tallness and short stature in Eastern Europe. The author finds an explanation for the picture of the geographical distribution of growth in the data of historical ethnography - in the placement of Finns and Slavs on the territory of Eastern Europe in different eras, the settlement of Slavic tribes and the ways of their colonization, which determined differences in the racial composition of individual areas. This “classical” work, by the strictest modern standards, introduced new materials into scientific use that significantly exceeded in the area covered everything that was known in the West. These materials were statistically developed in detail and subjected to the complex anthropological, geographical and ethnographic method of analysis that D.N. constantly followed in his works. Anuchin.

In the 80s, anthropological institutions began to emerge, in addition to Moscow, in other cities of Russia. Anthropological societies were founded in 1887 at St. Petersburg University, in 1893 at the St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy. The leader of the latter was the author of many craniological works, the famous Russian anatomist A.I. Tarenetsky (1845-1905). Under his leadership, a number of doctoral dissertations on anthropological topics were completed. In Kazan, anthropological work was carried out by N.M. Maliev. His student S. Chugunov, who worked at Tomsk University, published works on the osteology of the ancient population of Siberia. Some anthropological studies were carried out within the walls of Kharkov, Dorpat (Tartu) and other universities.

But the true center of anthropological work in Russia continued to be the Anthropological Department of OLEAE. For many years, the head of this society was D.N. Anuchin, who continued to develop what A.P. started. Bogdanov craniological research and work in the field of ethnic and racial composition of the modern population of Russia.

A characteristic feature of the activities of D.N. Anuchin had a desire to popularize science, while maintaining all the accuracy and rigor of scientific research. One of the results of this activity was the establishment in 1882 of the Anthropological Museum in Moscow, the basis for which was the collections collected for the Anthropological Exhibition of 1879.

An important merit of D.N. Anuchin, like his teacher A.P. Bogdanov, is the establishment and development of connections with the largest figures of foreign anthropology - its founders, such as P. Broca, P. Topinar, R. Martin, I. Deniker and others. These connections have significantly enriched anthropological knowledge.

They did not stop during Soviet times either. The first steps of anthropology of this period were also associated with the activities of D.N. Anuchina. Enjoying enormous respect in scientific circles, he not only continued his work at the university and in scientific societies, but acted as the initiator and organizer of new institutions. Thus, at his request, in the spring of 1919, the Department of Anthropology was established at Moscow University. The Scientific Research Institute of Anthropology at Moscow University, organized in 1922, owes its founding to his initiative.

After the organization of the Institute of Anthropology, the work of Moscow anthropologists, headed by V.V., received a new direction. Bunak, student of D.N. Anuchina. This direction is associated with the further expansion of the base of anthropological research and the development of anthropometric methods. What E.M. started is developing intensively. Chepurkovsky (1871-1950) application of biometric and geographical research methods. Under the leadership of V.V. Bunak differentiated techniques of morphological analysis are developed. Research into the anthropological composition of the population of Russia and the USSR republics has expanded widely. The works of V.V. date back to this time. Bunak and P.I. Zenkevich on the anthropology of the peoples of the Volga region, A.I. Yarkho - on the Turkic peoples of the Altai-Sayan Highlands and Central Asia, N.I. Anserova - for Azerbaijan, L.V. Oshanina - in Central Asia, L.P. Nikolaev - by the population of Ukraine and others. Large materials were collected on issues of physical development, constitution, age morphology. Anthropology has been enriched by paleoanthropological finds.

Mikhail Mikhailovich Gerasimov. A man who brought the past to life.

At first I wanted to limit myself to a standard biography, but then I came across an essay by the no less famous Boris Viktorovich Rauschenbach, who knew Gerasimov well. Moreover, his wife Vera Mikhailovna was connected with Gerasimov by common professional interests and cooperation.
The essay is very lively, so I decided to quote it with a slight abbreviation.

“Gerasimov was born in 1907 in Leningrad, his father, a doctor, in 1908 went with all his household to Irkutsk for a resettlement point - in those years many migrants went to Siberia - he treated everyone in the area, was a great lover of nature, in his library next to the medical literature stood books about the world of past geological eras and the works of Darwin. It is not surprising that Mikhail Mikhailovich became interested in “antiquities” and devoted himself to scientific activity in this field. He was nine years old when he joined the first excavations - the site of an ancient man was found near Irkutsk. His development as a scientist is typical of talented people of the 20s and 30s; he “achieved everything on his own,” worked very hard and eventually became a scientist recognized not only in the USSR, but throughout the world. In 1931-1932 he studied in Leningrad at the State Academy of Material Culture, and in 1937 he headed the restoration workshop of the Hermitage. And he started as an archaeologist at the Irkutsk Museum of Local Lore. Well, of course, I took part in excavations and explored ancient burials. It was then, apparently, that the idea of ​​reconstructing the appearance from the skull arose, because Mikhail Mikhailovich knew well that back in the last century Georges Cuvier had shown how much the bone remains of extinct animals could tell an observant scientist. Like his predecessors in this field, Gerasimov began with the accumulation of factual material, he began not with humans, but with animals - diplodocus and pterodactyl, with a saber-toothed tiger, mastodon, mammoth. Then - the head of a chimpanzee, his first work on monkeys, it is exhibited at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in St. Petersburg. He proved that there is a certain correlation between the bony part of the skull and the soft tissues. Based on this, it was possible to recreate muscle tissue from the skull; So Volcker once created a profile of Raphael based on his skull, and the question of the authenticity of the burial of the great artist of the High Renaissance was resolved. There are no two identical skulls in the world, just as there are no two identical faces. One of Gerasimov’s first tests was carried out in Leningrad, at the Miklouho-Maclay Museum of Ethnography: he was given a skull, whose, they did not say, and he created a portrait using his own method.

Later it turned out that there was, it turns out, a lifetime photograph of this man - a Papuan, whom Miklouho-Maclay at one time took to Russia; the Papuan fell ill and died in St. Petersburg, but his photographic image was preserved. By giving Gerasimov a Papuan skull, skeptics wanted to show the imperfection of his technique. They were sure that they would receive a sculpture of a European, but what they received was a Papuan. This is how one of the checks of Gerasimov’s art was done. For another control experiment in 1940, Gerasimov received a skull found in one of the crypts of a Moscow cemetery. The man lived about a hundred years ago and was a relative of the famous Russian writer - Gerasimov was told about this, but nothing more! He set to work; it turned out to be very painstaking, but Gerasimov was able to determine that the skull belonged to a relatively young woman. Therefore, restoring her face, he gave her the hairstyle that was worn at that time. After finishing the work, Mikhail Mikhailovich was told that they had restored the head of Maria Dostoevskaya, Dostoevsky’s mother, and her lifetime portrait was preserved, the only one painted when she was twenty years old. She died later, at thirty-seven, but the similarity between the reconstruction and the portrait was striking - one face!.. Criminologists very quickly learned about the work of M.M. Gerasimov, and he provided them with constant and very significant assistance. He told us about several cases. A boy disappeared in Leningrad, they could not find him for a very long time, in the end a skeleton was discovered, the skull was given to Gerasimov, he made a reconstruction, and then they began to look for who owned the image. When the boy’s parents were given a stack of photographs, they immediately selected those that were taken from Gerasimov’s painted and dressed reconstruction. Before the war in Stalingrad, a certain husband announced that his pregnant wife had disappeared. A year later, the teacher and the children went into the forest to collect a herbarium and came across the remains of a skeleton and a skull. The new city prosecutor, a woman, going through cases, found a disappearance case, it seemed to her that the found skull might belong to the missing person, she put it in a parcel and sent it to Mikhail Mikhailovich. He made a reconstruction, the hairstyle that the missing woman wore, and when the sculpture was shown to her husband, he immediately confessed to the murder...
I repeat that Gerasimov began as an archaeologist, took up anthropology and sculpture later, before that he conducted many excavations in Siberia. His Siberian excavations of ancient Paleolithic settlements are among the best in the collections of our country. He switched to reconstruction from skulls later. He himself wrote about this: “The idea of ​​​​the possibility of restoring the appearance of an ancient man arose in me a very long time ago. The implementation required many years of preparation, since I had to independently develop a technique for restoring the face from the skull. In parallel with my archaeological work, I studied anthropological material, dissected heads, measuring the thickness of the muscular cover... A lot of time passed before I risked offering my work to anthropologists.” God does not give a person only one talent; he either gives a lot at once, or gives nothing. So it is with Gerasimov. Of course, he was very talented not only as a scientist, but also as an artist and sculptor. He was always interested in the restoration of ancient types - Sinanthropus, Neanderthal, Paleolithic and Neolithic people. And he loved to say when he made a sculpture without a mustache and without a beard, without decorations appropriate to the era, without speculation - “This is what I am responsible for.” In 1938, in Uzbekistan, in the Tashik-Tash cave, A.P. Okladnikov, later an academician, found an ancient burial of a Stone Age culture. The entire skeleton of a Neanderthal boy was preserved there. Gerasimov restored it to its full height, and, naturally, this received a wide response. Many believed, many did not believe, passions boiled over his works.

Several of his largest works have not only archaeological, but also historical and cultural significance. For example, Yaroslav the Wise, whose tomb was opened in the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv. No one was sure then whether it was Yaroslav or not Yaroslav. In the chronicles he was called the “lame-footed prince,” and the skeleton had one leg shorter than the other. That is, everything was due to the fact that it was the skeleton of Yaroslav. And Gerasimov restored his appearance! There were, of course, hesitations until in 1941 a fresco depicting Prince Yaroslav was discovered in the St. Sophia Cathedral under a layer of late plaster, and although frescoes are always more generalized than a portrait miniature, the similarity with the restored appearance was undeniable.

Yaroslav the Wise

The restoration process is incredibly painstaking.
Well, here’s at least one detail: the eye sockets and the pear-shaped opening where the nose used to be. Who knows what kind of nose this was? After all, the nasal bones end high, then comes the cartilage. It would seem that you can imagine any nose: upturned, hooked - whatever you want. Through a huge number of experiments, Gerasimov established that if a tangent line is drawn through the last third of the nasal bones, and a straight line is also drawn from the subnasal spine, as if continuing it, then the point of intersection will one hundred percent indicate the tip of the nose. And the shape of the nose, its width depend on the width of the pear-shaped opening... The most difficult thing, Gerasimov admitted, for him is the ear. The ear, as he said, he never fully mastered.
The excavations of the burial of Andrei Bogolyubsky, the son of Yuri Dolgoruky, were very interesting. As you know, he refused to live with his father in Kyiv and went to reign in Vladimir, where he built a magnificent palace and cathedral in Bogolyubovo. The boyars and princes, forced to obey him, secretly hated him. The chronicle says: “I hated Prince Andrei... and there was fierce fighting in the Rostov and Suzdal lands.” In 1175, Prince Andrei was killed in his own palace. There was no point in arguing that it was Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky in the burial: next to him lay the prince’s hatchet with the letter “A”. But in the process of restoring the appearance, a certain type arose, for which, as Gerasimov said, he is responsible - a clearly Mongoloid type. A fairly wide circle of Gerasimov’s ill-wishers kept saying: what kind of son is Yuri Dolgoruky? How can a Russian person have such a Mongoloid facial appearance? In the end, they found in the documents: it turns out that Yuri Dolgoruky was married to the daughter of a Polovtsian khan in his second marriage, Andrei inherited these characteristic features from his mother. Moreover, the position of his head was very curious. The chronicles say that Prince Andrei was so arrogant that when ambassadors of foreign powers appeared, he did not bow to them. Mikhail Mikhailovich took up this matter, and it turned out that the prince suffered from some serious illness, his cervical vertebrae were fused, and he could not tilt his head.

Andrey Bogolyubsky

Not only the history of Russia, but also the history of Central Asia interested him.
In this regard, one cannot help but talk about his restoration of portraits of the Timurids: Timur himself, his sons and grandson. There are many legends associated with Timur Guragan, one of them talks about his injury, and he had a great many of them. Once Timur and his cavalry were returning from a campaign, and at sunset they entered a semi-dark gorge. Some kind of squad meets them. According to the customs of that time, a meeting with an unknown detachment almost always led to a fight. It was already getting dark, and over Timur’s head, as the legend says, the leader of the oncoming cavalry raised his saber, shouting his ancestral battle cry. By this cry, Timur recognized his father and intercepted his saber on the fly... When Gerasimov opened the tomb, it turned out that a bone callus ran through the entire left palm of Timur, along the back of it, which means that the hand was still cut. Here's a legend for you!

Tamerlane

In the Gur-Emir mausoleum, the graves of Timur's sons - Shahrukh and Miranshah, as well as Ulugbek, Timur's grandson, a famous scientist of his time, astronomer, poet and healer, were opened. Ulugbek was so great as an astronomer that even in medieval Europe he was considered, along with Ptolemy and a couple of other scientists, the pillar of astronomy; his astronomical tables were striking in their accuracy, and they were used even centuries after his death. Ulugbek was not only a scientist, but also a progressive ruler, which could not please the court circles. He was forced to abdicate the throne and make a penitential journey to Muslim shrines. Immediately after leaving the capital, assassins sent by the new ruler, Khan Abbas, overtook him and cut off his head. The opening of the grave showed that Ulugbek's head was indeed cut off. This fact, like Timur’s cut palm, allowed Gerasimov to say: “Rarely do archaeologists encounter such documentary evidence illustrating chronicle evidence and folk tales as in this case.”

Ulugbek

The Ministry of the Navy announced a competition to create a sculptural portrait of Ushakov for Ushakov’s anniversary, and Mikhail Mikhailovich proposed to open the admiral’s grave for this purpose. The work turned out to be very difficult, the ground signs of the burial were not preserved, we had to bring up all the documents that there was a chapel there, and near the chapel, there Ushakov was buried. And the chapel, I must say, has not survived either. But then, of course, Gerasimov, as an archaeologist, found the remains of the chapel, found the grave, and opened it. There was no doubt that Ushakov’s skeleton was there; his admiral’s stripes were preserved. And so Gerasimov makes a portrait. And passions began to boil again. There is a lifetime portrait of Ushakov, it depicts a nobleman with a nobly elongated face. When Mikhail Mikhailovich created his reconstruction, Ushakov turned out to have a completely different chin, heavy, almost square, strong-willed. Of course, certain canons were observed in the portraits of dignitaries of that time; a nobleman was supposed to be a sophisticated courtier, but, as they say, you can’t argue with the fact. And when they filmed the film “Admiral Ushakov,” the actor was already made up to match the appearance created by Gerasimov.

Ushakov

For many years, Mikhail Mikhailovich wanted to make a portrait of Ivan the Terrible - there are no reliable images of the Terrible, only a sculpture by Antokolsky (naturally, not a portrait) and some kind of ancient parsuna, made in a traditional icon-painting style. Gerasimov fussed a lot about Grozny during Stalin’s lifetime, and he said that this, of course, was very tempting, instructing Voroshilov to meet with Gerasimov, and Voroshilov conveyed Stalin’s words that in principle it would be good, but now is not the time - there is a war going on. After Stalin’s death, it was decided to allow Gerasimov to make such a portrait, but for good reason: the Palace of Congresses was being built, and the water regime of the Kremlin hill was disrupted. The Archangel Cathedral, the tomb of the Russian tsars, began to deform because it stood on stilts, and the stilts began to die. Work began on strengthening the Archangel Cathedral, and it was then that it was allowed to open the tomb of Ivan the Terrible at the same time. While making a portrait of the tsar, Gerasimov discovered that he, apparently, was seriously ill with dropsy in the last years of his life. The sculpture shows a characteristic puffiness.

Ivan groznyj

During the war, not being able to open the tomb of Ivan the Terrible, Gerasimov received permission to open the tomb of Boris Godunov and his family, fortunately it was not in the Kremlin, but in Zagorsk. The tomb of the Godunovs is located right in front of the Assumption Cathedral and upon opening it turned out to be ruined: the state of preservation is amazing, it would have been possible to create ideal reconstructions, even the silk fabrics that covered the coffin of Maria Feodorovna survived, the shirt of Tsarevich Fyodor, made from strips of leather, survived, the shoes of Princess Ksenia survived, but... the skulls were thrown away. And Ksenia was considered the first beauty at that time! My wife took part in the opening of the tomb and remembers that journalists were present at the opening and one of them, a local, asked her after the work was completed about the results. Upset, he replied that the main result was zero, because there were no skulls, and it was impossible to recreate the appearance of the Godunovs. The journalist was embarrassed and said: “It’s our fault.” As a boy, he and his peers were already “opening” graves, hoping to find treasures in the royal burials, and, finding nothing, they threw out the skulls out of anger. Until the end of his life, Mikhail Mikhailovich worked at the Institute of Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences; he had a laboratory at this institute, which still exists. Based on his thick book “Face Restoration from the Skull,” Gerasimov defended his doctoral dissertation, he was invited to many countries, in particular to America - come, we will pay you three thousand dollars for each sculpture (this was back in those days!). But he refused and went only to Germany, to the GDR, where there were three skulls “belonging” to Schiller. When he saw them, he immediately rejected one: it was clearly female. By the way, when Mikhail Mikhailovich was asked how he could distinguish a male skull from a female one at first glance, he answered that it was simply obvious, and, explaining, added: “The female one is always more beautiful...” Of the two remaining male ones, he chose the one that corresponded more with the famous portraits of Schiller. And he told us that when he was restoring, sculpting, applying layer after layer, and the Germans stood behind him, suddenly one of them began to shout: “He-he-he!” - Schiller began to appear under the hands of Gerasimov.

[ True, relatively recently there was information in the media that Gerasimov did not ultimately reconstruct Schiller’s appearance, since the confusion with the skulls continued ]

Gerasimov interested me not just as a person; Although our professions are mutually exclusive, I have always been fascinated by his work. I was the first to “discover” to my wife that there was such a Gerasimov, even before the war I read an article in a Leningrad newspaper about a specialist who could reconstruct the appearance of a skull. A few years later we met and became friends. A cheerful, interesting interlocutor with whom it is pleasant to sit and talk, to speculate about this and that. It was never boring with him. He told us all sorts of fascinating stories, it was a pleasure to communicate with him, no matter what the topic.
Of course, he possessed both incredible imagination and extra-logical knowledge - knowledge completely incomprehensible to us, and, in addition, phenomenal powers of observation. Mikhail Mikhailovich saw everything, including what others would never notice. And this natural observation, which did not require much effort from him, was an essential component of his talent. Without this amazing gift, he would hardly have been able to develop a method for reconstructing a person’s appearance from his skull.
Every science has its own outstanding person, perhaps a genius. This is Gerasimov. When he was excavating, he even noticed ashes: someone had smoked many years ago when they robbed the grave. In Altai, where the soil is permafrost, he found things that other archaeologists had not even seen, no matter how much they wanted.
It is characteristic that scientists did not recognize him at first; Ugrozysk recognized him, the first who gave him official orders and used his results. Naturally, he was always a little afraid of this world, and these works of his were not advertised, not because they were secret, but so as not to “get him.” Mikhail Mikhailovich treated this kind of work as a necessity; we have never heard of him receiving any special money for this. After all, the threat investigation department was a state organization, it turned to another state institution, to the institute where Gerasimov worked, and for his salary he made them incredibly complex reconstructions.

M.M.Gerasimov with students - laboratory staff

There was also a plus in this: Ugrozysk cannot be confused by skeptical theoretical chatter, so all the initial talk that Gerasimov’s work was quackery was refuted by the practice of Ugrozysk. And this was convincing: if crimes are solved on the basis of Gerasimov’s reconstructions, then everything is true.
Now the work begun by Gerasimov is continued by his students and the students of his students not only in Moscow. These works initiated similar research and the creation of portrait reconstructions in other countries. However, Mikhail Mikhailovich's reconstructions may continue to be in some ways the pinnacle of mastery. After all, although the technique he developed allows, as he himself claimed, any trained specialist to create a portrait reconstruction, in his works this general technique was complemented by his fantastic powers of observation: working with the skull, he saw a lot in it that an ordinary specialist simply is not able to notice, but which clarified this reconstruction.

"Feast" Friendly cartoon. MM. Gerasimov surrounded by ancient people and historical figures, whose appearance was reconstructed by him

In professional conversations with sculptors, when they argued that his work was not sculpture, not a work of art, he answered: that’s right, it’s not artistic, it’s a document. And you will make an artistic version of it. That is, he always believed that he was engaged in “documentation” and not high art. And he was, by the way, a very artistically gifted person. The sculptor’s main task is to convey the spiritual state of the character through his appearance, just like the artist. And for Gerasimov - to achieve a portrait resemblance, and the closest one at that. He created a portrait based on the person’s condition on the day of his death, and not in general.
True, if he wanted, he could “rejuvenate” him, using common sense and experience, but in general he recorded his appearance on the day of death.
I don't know if he believed in God. I don’t think so... They never talked about it; in those days it was irrelevant. And he did not have the feeling that he was acting blasphemously in relation to burials. No, he was a true scientist. Not for the church, however, but for the museum, he restored in Novgorod the appearance of Archbishop Vasily, not only a religious, but also a major political figure of his time, one of the significant figures in the history of Novgorod. The Church then reacted completely indifferently to this work of his.
All his life, Mikhail Mikhailovich dealt with the dead, but he retained his cheerfulness, enthusiasm, and extraordinary sociability. And that's okay. In Shakespeare, all the executioners are great jokers, and the gravediggers are witty. The thing is that you get used to everything. And besides, it must be said that when he dealt with the dead, he no longer perceived them as dead. Just stuff to work with, skulls and bones. But he also needed to study the heads of the dead in morgues, just as Michelangelo Buonarotti needed to dissect corpses in order to understand the structure of human muscles. Working with corpses, Gerasimov came to the conclusion that after death something changes in the tissues of the human body, and therefore, for control and clarification, he began to work additionally using radiographs. He asked his doctor friends to give him such x-rays. One of them decided to play a joke and put his own in the stack of radiographs. Going through them, Gerasimov asked: “When did you film?” It was impossible to deceive him; he was incredibly observant.
Before his work, it was believed throughout the world that it was impossible to make a portrait from a skull. Nobody believed in what he did, because the general world science believed that it was possible to make a generalized type, but not a portrait of a specific person, some Ivan Ivanovich. It is not surprising that one American anthropologist said in those distant years about Gerasimov’s control work: “This cannot be. I refuse to believe my own eyes!..”
An entire era has passed with this man.”

P.I. LIPATOV,
L.N. LIPATOVA,
biology teachers,
Mezhdurechesk, Kemerovo region.

Fundamentals of anthropology with elements of human genetics

Training and metodology complex

Of all the subjects of the biological cycle in the school curriculum, there is only one dedicated to man - “Man and his health.” Its content is dominated by the anatomical and physiological characteristics of the organism, while understanding human biology requires a broader, interdisciplinary approach. The program of the proposed special course “Fundamentals of Anthropology with Elements of Human Genetics” is an attempt to implement such an approach.

The main goal of the special course is to expand knowledge about a person and his characteristics; development of students' scientific knowledge skills through familiarization with elements of research activities.

Main objectives of the special course

1. Introduce the main stages in the development of anthropology and its place in the system of biological and medical sciences.
2. Study the main branches of anthropology: morphology, somatology, dermatoglyphics, ethnic anthropology.
3. Introduce and teach methods and techniques of research work in human biology and medical biology.
4. To give an idea of ​​the practical application of anthropology in medicine and its significance in the system of training a future specialist who studies and works with humans.
5. Formation of scientific knowledge skills.
6. Development of self-observation skills and research culture.

The special course can be used in grades 10–11.

Within the framework of the course, career guidance work is carried out for medical and biological specialties; general educational skills aimed at collecting and analyzing data, the ability to compare and analyze, and mathematically process biological data are instilled. All these skills and abilities increase the educational level of future students and contribute to the formation of scientific potential, primarily in the field of biology.

The special course was developed by biology teachers from the Multidisciplinary City Lyceum and Children's Home-School No. 5 “Unity” in Mezhdurechensk T.I. Lipatova and L.N. Lipatova (consultants: Ph.D. F.A. Luzina, Novokuznetsk Research Institute of Hygiene and Occupational Diseases; Ph.D. E.A. Lotosh, Head of the Department of Biology, Novokuznetsk Institute of Advanced Studies) with the participation of the Administration of Mezhdurechensk and Municipal education management institution - education committee.

The creation of the presented complex began in parallel with its testing (1994–1995). Over the years, teachers have graduated a sufficient number of students, many of whom chose the medical and biological direction for further education. Some of them, having graduated from higher educational institutions, today work in the healthcare system of the city and region.

The skills instilled in students are demonstrated by them at scientific and practical conferences and competitions at the regional, regional and all-Russian levels. They are traditional participants and winners of the Mezhdurechensk and Novokuznetsk city scientific and practical conferences for schoolchildren; Regional scientific and training course for schoolchildren “Ecology and industrial city”; laureates of the Regional Archaeological and Ethnographic Conference of Schoolchildren, the All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference “Youth. The science. Culture" (Obninsk) and the All-Russian competition of youth research works named after V.I. Vernadsky (Moscow) since 1995

			Practical work, h	Excursions, h
1. Introduction
2. Human morphology, including: 2.1. Merology 2.2. Body coverings and pigmentation 2.3. Hematology	31 11 10 10	20 6 6 8	9 5 4 –	2 – – 2
3. Sense organs
4. Ethnic anthropology
5. Complex anthropogenetic traits
6. Consultations, reserve time

1. INTRODUCTION (3 hours)

1.1. Anthropology as a science. Main sections (morphology, anthropogenesis, racial studies) and methods of anthropology.
1.2. History of the development of anthropology. Anthropology in Russia.
1.3. Indigenous people of our region: history and culture. Excursion to the local history museum.

1.1. Anthropology as a science

The term “Anthropology” is literally translated from Greek as “the science of man.” Its first use belongs to Aristotle, who used this word primarily in the study of the spiritual nature of man.

In Western European literature, a double understanding of the term “anthropology” took root quite early, namely as the science of the human body, on the one hand, and the human soul, on the other.

French encyclopedists gave the term “anthropology” a very broad meaning, understanding by it the entire body of knowledge about man. During the 19th century. and to this day in England, America and France, anthropology is understood as the study, firstly, of the physical organization of man and, secondly, of the culture and life of various peoples and tribes in the past and present.

In Soviet science, a strict division of the terms “anthropology”, “ethnography”, and “archaeology” is accepted.

Archeology is understood as a science that studies the historical past of mankind using material sources; ethnography is a branch of history that studies all aspects of the culture and life of living peoples, the origin of these peoples, the history of their settlement, movements and cultural-historical relationships. Anthropology studies variations in the human physical body in time and space.

Anthropology is a branch of natural science that studies the origin and evolution of the physical organization of man and his races.

The task of anthropology is to trace the process of transition from biological laws that governed the existence of man's animal ancestor to social laws.

Main branches of anthropology

1. Morphology.
2. Anthropogenesis.
3. Race studies, or ethnic anthropology.

Morphology solves issues related to: individual variability of physical type; its age-related changes from the early stages of embryonic development to old age inclusive; the phenomenon of sexual dimorphism and, finally, the analysis of those features of the physical organization of man that arise under the influence of various living and working conditions.

Morphology consists of two parts.

1. Merology (from the Greek “meros” - part), which studies the variations of individual human organs and individual tissues, as well as their mutual connection;

2. Somatology (from the Greek “soma” - body), which studies the structure of the human body as a whole, i.e. patterns of variations in height, weight, chest circumference, proportions, etc.; and sets as its task the establishment of standards, or norms, for the sizes of the human body, the most common combinations of sizes, and develops calculation methods that make it possible to establish how often certain deviations from these combinations occur. Anthropology thereby makes it possible to organize, on a completely scientific basis, the mass production of personal items (shoes, clothing, hats, etc.). Morphology is of great importance for establishing the norms of physical development at different ages, as well as variations in physique and their connection with the physiological characteristics of the body.

Anthropogenesis focuses its attention on the changes that the nature of man's closest ancestor, and then man himself, undergoes during the Quaternary period. This is the morphology of man and his predecessors, considered over time, measured on a geological scale.

Anthropogenesis considers questions about the place of man in the system of the animal world, his relationship as a zoological species to other primates, restoration of the path along which the development of higher primates took place, and the study of the role of labor in the origin of man.

The anthropogenesis section includes subsections.

1. Primate science, i.e. study of modern and fossil apes and prosimians.
2. Evolutionary human anatomy.
3. Paleoanthropology, i.e. study of human fossil forms.

Chapter racial studies, devoted to the study of similarities and differences between human races, can be called, by analogy with the branch of anthropology, morphology, considered in space, i.e. over the entire surface of the globe inhabited by humans.

Racial studies, or ethnic anthropology, studies the classification of racial types, their distribution across the Earth, the history of the formation of races, the reasons for racial formation and patterns of changes in racial types.

Methods of anthropology

The anthropological method is based on the method of anthropometry, or measuring the human body. Based on the object that serves as the subject of measurement, a distinction is made between somatometry (actually anthropometry), or the measurement of a living person, osteometry - the measurement of skeletal bones, craniometry - the measurement of the skull.

In the broadest sense of the word, anthropometry also includes anthropooscopy, i.e. a “descriptive” or “qualitative” method of characterizing the shape of body parts, head, hair, facial features, skin pigmentation, hair, iris, etc. To achieve the most accurate definitions of “descriptive” or “qualitative” characteristics, various scales are widely used in anthropology, for example, scale sets of skin color, eyes, hair, standards in the form of dummies of lips, nose, ears, etc.

The foundations of modern anthropological methods were laid by the works of the famous French anthropologist, anatomist and surgeon Broca's fields(1824–1880), who in the 1860–1870s. developed detailed programs for conducting anthropological research, proposed a number of instruments and tools for measuring the human body, compiled tables for determining pigmentation, etc.

Methods of variational-statistical processing of measurement materials are widely used in anthropology; Using these methods, the most frequently occurring characteristic value in the study group and some other indicators are determined.

1.2. History of the development of anthropology in Russia

Anthropology took shape as an independent science in Russia, as in other countries, in the second half of the 19th century. Only in the 1950–1960s. The first scientific anthropological institutions and societies arose, and special anthropological works began to be published. But the accumulation of anthropological data began much earlier. The research was inextricably linked with the collection of ethnographic materials.

Already in medieval Russian literature one can find more or less detailed descriptions of the characteristics of the physical types of individual peoples, which have always attracted the attention of travelers and writers. With the expansion of ethnographic horizons, anthropological knowledge about the different peoples of Russia also increases. A particularly significant accumulation of these materials is associated with the annexation of Siberia to the Russian state.

Among the figures of Russian science of the first half of the 18th century. one of the first places belongs to V.N. Tatishchev. The questionnaire program he proposed (it contained 198 questions on various sections of geography and history, including anthropological data) had a huge impact on the content of the work of the Great Northern Expedition of 1733–1743.

Anthropological information is also provided in the works S.P. Krasheninnikova“Description of the land of Kamchatka” (1755). Enormous material was collected by participants of the academic expedition of 1768–1774. under the direction of P.P. Pallas. A summary of the accumulated ethnographic materials can be considered published in 1776–1777. composition Georgi“Description of all the peoples living in the Russian state.”

In the first half of the 19th century, starting with the first circumnavigation of I.F. Krusenstern and Yu.F. Lisyansky in 1803-1806, Russian sailors made more than thirty trips around the world, which were not only marked by the most important geographical discoveries, but also brought the first information about many peoples of the globe, primarily about the population of the Pacific islands.

The formation of anthropology in Russia is associated with the activities of the academician K.M. Bera(1792–1876). One of the greatest naturalists of the 19th century, the founder of modern embryology, K. Baer is known as an outstanding geographer and traveler, as one of the largest anthropologists of his time, as the organizer of anthropological and ethnographic research in Russia.

Baer's early works date back to the 20s. XIX century Of particular interest is his report “On the Origin and Distribution of Human Tribes” (1822), in which he develops the view of the origin of humanity from a common root and expresses the idea that the differences between human races developed after their settlement from a common center, under the influence of various natural conditions in their habitat areas.

Particular mention should be made of Baer's merits in developing the program and methodology of anthropological, primarily craniological, research.

N.N. Miklukho Maclay, being a zoologist by profession, glorified Russian science not so much for his work in this area as for his remarkable research on the ethnography and anthropology of the peoples of New Guinea and other areas of the South Pacific.

His first famous expedition to the northeastern coast of New Guinea dates back to 1871-1872. For 15 months N.N. Miklouho-Maclay lived among the Papuans, who had never seen a white man before, and collected the most valuable scientific materials. Subsequently, he visited this area two more times. In 1873, he explored the southwestern part of the island, the Papua-Koviai coast, and in 1880 and 1881. southern coast of New Guinea.

In addition, he undertook a number of expeditions to study the Negritos of the island. Luzon, the peoples of the Malacca Peninsula, visited the islands of Micronesia and northern Melanesia. In 1879 he traveled to the islands of New Caledonia, New Hebrides, Admiralty, Solomon and others.

Miklouho-Maclay’s greatest merit is that he refuted the false ideas prevailing in science at that time about the fundamental differences between individual races, in particular the assertion that the Papuans are fundamentally different from all other human races.

In his works we find convincing examples of evidence that many of the physical characteristics of individual peoples, considered racial, are in fact explained by external factors.

One of the most important events in the history of Russian anthropology was the founding in 1863 of the Society of Natural History Lovers at Moscow University, which aimed to promote the development of natural history knowledge in wide circles of Russian society. The initiator, organizer and for 30 years the actual leader of the Society was a professor at Moscow University A.P. Bogdanov (1834–1896).

The greatest attention of A.P. Bogdanov, as a researcher, was attracted to the study of the ethnogenesis of the Russian people according to craniological data.

1.3. Indigenous people of our region: history and culture

In our case, this lesson is conducted in the form of an excursion to a local history museum, during which students receive information about one of the groups of indigenous inhabitants of southern Siberia - the Shors. It tells about the history and settlement of this people, mention of them in the works of researchers of different times, their numbers, and territorial distribution. The legends of the Shors are presented, the history of their language, tribal division, trades, economy and way of life of their ancestors are told.

To be continued